Polish people are proud of their parish

The Polish Catholic population of Jersey City was growing so fast 100 years ago, that St. Anthony’s Church, founded downtown in 1884, boasted some 12,000 families, according to Barbara Bromirski, a local funeral director and prominent member of that parish.

Not one but two mission churches were started in 1911 on two ends of the city to accommodate the Polish immigrants.

Our Lady of Czestochowa, in the Paulus Hook section, has marked its centennial since last September with a variety of events, most recently a dinner-dance at the Casino-in-the-Park in May. Now it’s St. Ann’s turn. It is celebrating its centennial with a Mass on Sunday, July 24, 2011, at the 10:30 Mass followed by a dinner-dance at the Empire Club in Little Ferry.

Czestochowa is named after a Marian shrine in Poland and boasts a moving (literally) icon of the Black Madonna over the main altar. It has a promising future because of its location in a gentrified area of Jersey City. Though there is an active core of second and third generation Poles who still worship there, the parish has attracted newcomers from the townhouses and high rises along the waterfront.

Plus St. Peter’s Church, which had been part of Resurrection Parish, was bought by St. Peter’s Prep and closed as a house of worship, so many of their parishioners walked around the corner to OLC.

I resided in that rectory for 12 years and witnessed the fine pastoral leadership of Rev. Thomas Iwanowski, who was called there to reach out to the surrounding community. He left there two years ago and was replaced by Rev. Thomas Ciba, who continues many of the programs and runs a top-notch elementary school.

Michael T. Dempsey / The Jersey Journal Deacon John Karal talks to Jersey City residents Ann Dragone, 85, and Ken Kwiatkowski, 40, after Sunday mass at St Ann's Church in Jersey City on June 26, 2011.

Bromirski is an alumna of OLC school when it was staffed by mostly Felician nuns. She remembers the huge crowds for the annual May crowning, the blessing of food for Easter on Holy Saturday and the great Holy Name parades where each parish tried to upstage the other. “It was always a close parish,” said Bromirski, whose great-grandfather, Leon, and grandfather, Wladyslaw, were founding members of OLC and started the funeral home — Bromirski’s — on the next corner, where it still is located.

Frances Gawlick was born in St. Ann’s 83 years ago when the parish was only 17 years old, moved around a bit, and now lives up the hill in the senior citizen residence for the last 13 years. She remembers when there was a full orchestra at the church, a drum corps and it was bustling with all kinds of organizations like the Rosary Society. She serves as the secretary today of a very small group of mostly seniors. She sees the demographic changes around the church and simply says, “It’s my church.”

And Rev. Kazimierz Kuczynski, the pastor, is happy that she and some 300 other parishioners keep the parish going. He has one staff member and does every thing else himself. They make ends meet with the help of profit from the sale of the school and convent that were converted to condos. The American Can Company across the street was a lure for immigrants looking for work and populated the parish.

Now, converted to condos, there is only one new parishioner living there who comes to St. Ann’s. Kuczynski has renovated the church and is happy there are about 35 children in their religious education program. They are its future. There are fewer Poles in these two churches, but their memories are as strong as their faith.